


Captain Sparkles

by bisexualbarry



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Attempt at Humor, Fluff, M/M, POV Steve Rogers, Pining, Pranks and Practical Jokes, Requited Love, Social Media, Steve is doing his best, idk what else to tag
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-21
Updated: 2019-02-21
Packaged: 2019-11-01 21:15:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,374
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17874989
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bisexualbarry/pseuds/bisexualbarry
Summary: As a joke, Natasha and Clint made a fan account for Steve and locked him out of his own. They didn't intend for Steve to actually use it.





	Captain Sparkles

**Author's Note:**

> idk what this is, but i attempted to be funny. i hope it shows, LOL
> 
> not my best writing, i dont think?? but i hope you enjoy it anyway

His whole body felt like lead. Simply walking felt like a chore, each step sinking him further and further into the mud. 

The mission, bizarrely enough, was a simple one. Simple information gathering, which is why he went on his own. It only lasted a couple days, but right near the end, it felt like everybody was coming out of the woodworks for him. Which was why, as he walked into the tower, he felt like he could lay down on the floor and sleep for about ten hours straight. 

He wouldn’t, though. As clean as the floors could be, it was still a disgusting thought to sleep on them. 

After a hot shower and in clean clothes, Steve walked into the kitchen to grab a quick bite to eat before passing out for the next few hours. Natasha was already sitting at the island, finishing up what looked to be her homemade recipe for chili that Steve wasn’t entirely sure he wanted to know the ingredients of. While it was delicious, it was also hot to the point that Natasha was the only one who didn’t down an entire glass of milk after half a bowl. Bucky and Clint would always challenge each other to who could eat the most before they cracked. The scent of the chili made Steve’s stomach rumble, but he chose to reheat some for himself at another time. He needed sleep. 

“Hey, you left your phone here when you went on your mission,” Natasha spoke up, pulling Steve’s phone out of her pocket. “Tony wanted to take it and change everything, but I grabbed it before he could.” 

“Oh, thank you.” Steve took the phone from Natasha’s outstretched hand and unlocked it just to be sure. Having his phone left unguarded at the tower never meant good things for anybody. “I didn’t even realise I left it here.” 

“You’re not attached to it enough,” Natasha stated, the corners of her mouth twitching up in a small smile. “I’m sure Peter would act like his arm got cut off if he left his phone anywhere.” 

Steve snorted and sat down next to her at the island. They made some small talk before Natasha was standing up. Steve went to his room not long later, passing out the second his head hit the pillow. 

He woke up about eleven hours later. It’s only six in the morning, so he’s the only one currently awake. As he’s making himself a cup of coffee, he felt his phone buzz from his back pocket. He had a bunch of Instagram notifications, which confused him a bit, because he remembered Tony helping him so he only got notifications from the people he followed. Grabbing his cup, Steve sat once more at the island, opening up the app to see why he’s getting so many notifications. Much to his surprise, he’s logged into an account with the user ‘captainsparkles’, and he instantly knows who’s behind it. 

One of the two culprits strolled leisurely into the kitchen, her red hair thrown into a loose bun. Her morning look isn’t witnessed by many, and Steve is the only one who saw it often enough. Even though Natasha wasn't full awake quite yet, he knew she had her ears listening for his reaction. 

“See, when you handed me my phone, I was under the assumption nothing had been done to it,” he said, showing her the screen so she could see the Instagram. 

Natasha was smirking, her eyes full of a mirth Steve had been the recipient of too often lately. “Your _phone_ is untouched. I said nothing about the apps within it.” 

Steve let out a sigh, but he was smiling. Natasha had made herself some tea and was sipping on it as she wandered back into her room to get ready for the day. Glaring back down at the phone, he noticed that Natasha and Clint had followed a bunch of random different Avengers themed fan accounts, and some had followed him back, hence the notifications. Even without anything on the account, he had managed to get thirty followers, with a following count of about five hundred. 

Steve was going to kill them. 

Even staring at the username hurt. ‘ _Captainsparkles_ ’. It alone told Steve that Clint was at least partially responsible. It stemmed from when Steve had ordered a pair of gym shorts online, and they arrived all sparkly. Clint had teased him for a solid month following that. After that, he stuck to shopping in stores. 

Sipping at his cooling coffee, Steve tried logging into his regular Instagram, only to be faced with a log in error, saying his password was incorrect. Feeling frustrated, Steve dumped the rest of his coffee before getting ready to go for his run. 

Two hours and a shower later, Steve found Clint in the living room. “What’s the password?” he asked, straight to the point. 

Clint was smirking wickedly, taking a slow bite out of his cereal to stall as Steve stood there. “If you want the password,” he said eventually. “You’ll have to figure it out for yourself.” 

Letting out a huff, Steve stormed from the room. But not before hearing Clint laughing. 

 **~*~**  

Steve knew for a fact that Tony would be more than willing to help Steve access his account. After teasing him mercilessly before and afterwards, he would still help. Hell, Steve’s pretty sure anybody would be able to figure out his password, new or old. If Steve was anything, he was consistent. And stubborn. Most of his passwords to things were all the same. It was easier for him to remember, even if it almost gave Tony an aneurysm after telling him. 

Sitting alone on his bed, Steve stared at the Instagram in front of him. The username was tacky enough, but combined with a sparkly Captain America shield as his icon, it almost made him delete the app completely of his phone. There wasn’t anything in his bio, so he felt a little safer, but being logged into the account in general made him hate ever downloading Instagram. 

Feeling bored, and wondering what stuff would be in his explore on the account, Steve scrolled mindlessly through the app. There was an edit that suddenly caught his attention, making him furrow his eyebrows as he clicked on it. It appeared to be a story edit of such, pictures of Tony standing behind a podium for a press conference, going on and on about him and Steve going public about their relationship. 

It made him pause, and he had to read it a few times for it to really sink in. People, in the general public, wanted them to date, and even _made edits of it_. The thought made his head spin. 

A blush spread across his cheeks at the thought. Of him and Tony being together, and even being confident enough in their relationship to go public about it. It wasn’t that he hadn’t thought about it before, because he had, many times, but seeing Tony talking about it was another thing. Granted, it wasn’t _really_ Tony saying those things. If memory served him right, the exact press conference in the post was about Tony going public about being Iron Man. 

He went to click on the profile handle, but clicked the “follow” option right next to it. Blushing deeper, Steve went to the profile and found it was full of similar edits to the one he stumbled across. Different TV appearances between the two, with different words and phrases as subtitles, leading Steve further down a rabbit hole he never would’ve even considered. 

The username was some form of his hero name, but there were dozens of comments including the word “stony” that it took Steve a minute to realise it was a combination of his and Tony’s name. He didn’t think people thought about stuff like that enough to even combine their names like that. It was actually kind of cool. 

Even though a couple of the edits left his face red the entire time he was looking through Instagram, it also left Steve with a sort of calm happiness that spread throughout him at the thought that there were people would support the relationship. Or any sort of combination of them all, if any of the posts on his feed indicated (how did Clint and Natasha even _find_ all of these accounts). He liked a few on his feed and left some generic comments like “this edit is great!” but past that, Steve wasn’t sure what to do with it. Peter and Tony had helped him with setting up his own profile, and that had been embarrassing enough, that he didn’t even want to touch on the topic of getting back into it. 

It isn’t until a few days later when he checks the account again. He’s been keeping busy with various Avengers activates and working on his art in the free time. ‘CaptainSparkles’ was on his backburner of worries, but it still wiggled in his brain every so often. Whenever he found himself in Tony’s lab, watching him work, either alone or with Banner or Peter, Steve often found himself sketching Tony. Every time he found himself drawing the other man, he felt like a teenager all over again. He was fairly certain Peter was handling his crush on MJ better than Steve was on Tony. And calling it a crush felt like such a teenager thing to label it, but he couldn’t think of anything else. 

Once more, Steve found himself in his room staring at the Instagram. Holing himself in his room to look at it was probably starting to make the others suspicious. But they were all nosey enough that he wouldn’t have enough privacy to do it anywhere else. 

Somehow, Steve got roped into a conversation in the comment section of one of the accounts he followed, talking about “stony”, of all things. The other account seemed to be going on and on about how very not subtle Steve is whenever he’s around Tony. The thought brought a light blush to his cheeks at the thought that Tony may catch on at some point, if he hasn’t already. 

His phone vibrated in his hand, startling him a minute before he noticed he had a DM notification. Opening it, Steve saw that he had been added to a group DM titled “Stony Lovers”. Not sure how else to proceed with it, Steve let his eyes read over a few messages that popped up. They all welcomed him, despite him never having posted anything in the entire time he had his profile. Scrolling through everybody in the chat, he saw that he followed most of them. 

Natasha and Clint seemed to know what they were doing when they were setting it up. 

After some polite chatter with people in the group, who definitely welcomed him after he introduced himself as “Grant”, he was called away to a friendly meeting in the kitchen. Apparently, Peter had wanted to try attempting to cook a new dish, and MJ, Harry, Ned, and May had all already turned him down from trying it on them. Peter admittedly wasn’t the best cook, but he was taking cooking classes at the community college he was attending, and wanted to test the new dishes out. 

The meal wasn’t too bad. Burnt in some places, and underdone in others, but Peter seemed to consider it a success. They all met in the living room afterwards, a random episode of _Family Guy_ playing on the TV as they all let the meal settle in their stomachs. 

“Hey, do you guys ever think it’s weird when, like, people you don’t know ship you guys together?” Peter asked randomly, looking up from his own phone. 

“What?” Steve asked before he could stop himself. “What does that even mean?” 

“Shipping? Like, relation _ship_. It’s what it’s called when you want two people to be together. For example, I ship Barry and Iris from _The Flash_. I’m only on season one, so I would like to see them together,” Peter explained. He then snorted. “I knew you were old, Steve, but as much as you’ve gotten used to social media, I would’ve thought you’d at least pick up one of the most universal terms on there.” 

“I’m not old.” And Steve was definitely not pouting. Only, Peter was snickering to himself and there were a few others smirking at his expense. 

“Sure, Cap. Anyway, I don’t really mind it. Can’t really stop them, either way, so I don’t let it bother me,” Tony spoke up. “Then again, who wouldn’t want to ‘ship’ me?” 

Steve rolled his eyes, but agreed with Tony’s statement. The others all spoke up and said pretty much the same thing. Banner seemed uncomfortable at the thought, but like Tony said, they couldn’t really stop people from doing it. People all slowly meandered to go wind down for the night, but Steve stayed put where he sat. Bucky was snoring from his spot on the couch, but Steve was otherwise alone. 

Pulling out his phone, he opened up the app once more. He tried not to be on it so often, he really did, but with all the new information and new term still fresh in his mind, he found himself chatting with these other accounts. 

 **~*~**  

It took him a month to figure out his new password. A _month_. And it’s _Tony’s birthday_. 

He’s definitely going to kill Natasha and Clint later. 

Must to his dismay, he still used the other account. While he’s back to being logged into his normal account, he used the other one more often. Which caused Tony to tease him that he was photo stalking everybody he followed. Steve brushed it off, but the remarks weren’t too far off from what he was doing. Talking a lot with the “shippers” made him feel a bit better that his crush wasn’t some far off reality (if what they said about Tony’s looks at him were anything to go by, then maybe his crush wasn’t as unrequited as he thought). On the other hand, it also made his crush worse, if anything. Because if they were wrong, and looking too much into things, then Steve would be crushed. By that point, he was in far too deep to simply brush off a rejection from Tony. 

To his utter embarrassment, it seemed his phone was also working against him. Due to all the talking he did in the DM, his phone had saved the word into his autocorrect. While it _was_ a word, it had often changed “Tony” to “Stony” whenever he used the other man’s name. He had been lucky thus far when it came to texting the others. He was able to catch and change it before he sent anything out. 

Feeling like he was at his wit’s end, Steve turned to Peter. 

“I don’t know how to change it,” Peter said with a laugh. “It’s a word, and autocorrect is weird when it comes to what words it picks and chooses to autocorrect. You’d have to rest your phone to get it to stop.” 

Steve let out a breath, feeling frustrated. He had told Peter about the account, and while it was extremely embarrassing and caused a few jabs from the young man, Peter also tried to help. 

“Look, I won’t tell anyone what you’re doing,” Peter said finally, looking away from the essay he was working on when Steve approached him. “I think it’s kinda sweet, what you’re doing. Doesn’t mean I won’t tease you about it. Mainly because _Captain America_ has a fake fan account that he uses to talk about Tony with other people.” 

Steve’s face burned. “I talk about other things...” 

“Of course you do. Here, let me see it.” 

Steve handed his phone over to Peter, who had the app already pulled up before he could even blink. Peter snorted when he saw the user and the blank profile. “How long have you had this? You could at least make it look somewhat realistic.” 

“How would I do that?” 

“Google pictures of you or Tony, I guess? I could teach you how to use a filtering app, but you’d probably be able to use Instagram’s filters better.” 

“There’s apps for filtering photos?” 

In retrospect, Steve figured asking Peter may have not been the best route. While Peter was insanely helpful when it came to Instagram and how to use it (much like he was the first time. Peter was incredibly patient with Steve when it came to technology. Tony was, too, of course, but Steve was too chicken to ask for help). 

Fury called him in not long after, and told him about a week-long mission he’d be going on. He wasn’t told yet where he was going, but he would have to pack quickly and meet up at the runway for takeoff. Steve was a tad irked about the last-minute notice, but followed directions as asked. After sending Tony a quick text, Steve turned off his phone and left. 

 **~*~**  

 **_[To: Tony_ **    
**_Hey, Stony, I’m off on a mission for the week. Sorry for the last-minute head’s up, but you know how Fury can be.]_ ** 

 **~*~**  

The mission ended up being longer than expected. Instead of one week, it was three. It frustrated Steve to no end, but the job got done the way it needed to be, so Steve wasn’t about to complain too much. 

Steve was sitting on the couch in the living room, eyes closed as he let himself almost melt into the couch. Even though he was only gone for a few weeks, it felt like the couch was made of clouds. It was softer than any of the motel beds he'd been sleeping in. 

“Steve, what the hell?” 

Confused, Steve opened his eyes to see Tony sitting next to him. “Um. Hello to you, too?” 

“How the hell do you know what ‘stony’ is?” Tony continued on, like Steve had never spoken. 

It felt like the all the air left Steve’s lungs as Tony showed him the phone screen, Steve’s text sitting there. Taunting him. “Stony is a word,” he tried. 

“Yeah, but it’s capitalized. You do that when you’re using names, Steven. Because you’re all proper about your texting. Which means you meant it as a name,” Tony explained away. He locked his phone and set it on the coffee table. “Tell me, Cap. How the _hell_ do you know what it is?” 

“Well, you know how I’ve been on Instagram more lately. Stumbled across somebody talking about it, and after typing it a few times, it stuck in my phone.” Steve bit his bottom lip, staring at Tony and waiting. Tony still looked confused. It was a rather cute look, if Steve was being honest. 

“And in what kind of discussion would you be pulled into to talk about enough times to have my name autocorrected to it?” 

Clearing his throat, Steve sat up a little on the couch. Figuring he had no way out of this with his dignity intact, he swallowed his pride and told Tony everything that happened since he went on his last mission. Tony was quiet throughout, posture going slacker as Steve talked. 

Once Steve was done telling Tony everything, Steve was quickly pulled into a kiss. Steve melted into the kiss before pulling back, eyebrows furrowed in confusion. “Not that I didn’t like that, but what was that for?” 

“I figured if you of all people talk about something enough for it to stick in your phone, it must mean something to you.” 

There was a hint of nervousness in words, a very subtle shake that Steve wouldn’t have picked up if he wasn’t listening so closely. Instead of answering, Steve pulled him in for another, sweeter kiss. 

“Does that answer that for you?” Steve murmured. 

Later on, when they’re all having a team movie night, Steve and Tony are pressed close together, cuddling under a blanket. Steve felt eyes on him, causing him to turn his head to meet Peter’s curious stare. 

“Does this mean you’re going to delete the Instagram?” 

Steve wanted to kill him. 

**Author's Note:**

> idk what im doing anymore
> 
>  
> 
> [my tumblr](http://bibibarry.tumblr.com)  
> [my instagram](http://instagram.com/olivxrry)


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